TAKING CHARGE: STUDENTS DIRECTING UNIVERSITY THEATRE PRODUCTION OF NEIL SIMON'S 'PLAZA SUITE' (REVIEW)

James Adams and Megwyn Sanders performed a scene from the play "Plaza Suite" by Neil Simon.

God is a like a watchmaker, the Deists used to say, who builds a watch, sets it in motion and steps back to let the watch run on its own, allowing the creation to administer itself through natural law.

The same idea could be said of a good director. While the director has, or at least ought to have, total artistic control of a play, a good director will put the production into motion and stand back to allow it to play out before the audience. The direction will not seem intrusive or stagy, but natural, as if flowing from the characters themselves.

It isn't easy.

Even the most experienced of directors will be tempted from time to time to put their distinctive stamps on productions so that there is no doubt in the audience's mind who directed the show. It is particularly difficult for novice directors who may want the audience to see their direction in every bit of blocking and business, in every movement, in every gesture.

It was with sheer delight, then, to see that the three directors of the university's production of Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite" -- novices all -- managed to stage a play where the spotlight is on the action beneath the lights and not reflecting back to the directors themselves.

The directors -- Kim Westrich, Scott Mercer and Jessica Nelms -- are all students, marking the first time in the history of the Rose Theatre that a main stage production has been directed by students. Each is given one act of the play to direct.

"Plaza Suite," which opens at 8 p.m. Friday at Southeast Missouri State University's Rose Theatre, is actually three one-act plays tied together by a common theme and by the fact that they are all set in the same hotel suite, Room 719 of New York's Plaza Hotel.

The play, one of Simon's earliest works, was first produced on Broadway in the late 1960s and shows Simon at his funniest.

Simon cut his comedic teeth on skit comedy in the early days of television, writing for Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca on "Your Show of Shows." His early theater work, including "The Odd Couple" and "Barefoot in the Park," reflect the influence of television with rapid fire dialogue and a sitcom feel.

But this is Neil Simon. And the dialogue is much wittier than a typical TV sitcom and the characterizations deeper.

As the house lights dim and the curtain prepares to rise, the fading bars of Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage" plays, preparing the audience for a theme that will run through all three acts -- that of the pitfalls and pratfalls of relationships.

The first act, "Visitor from Mamaronek," tells of the story of Sam and Karen Nash, a couple whose marriage is suffering from the effects of Sam's burgeoning midlife crisis.

Looking out at an empty space in the Manhattan skyline where the Savoy Plaza hotel used to stand, 48-year-old Karen Nash tells the bellhop, "If it's old and it's beautiful, it's not there in the morning."

"Old is no good anymore. Today it has to be new," she says.

Enter Sam, a 51-year-old business executive in the throes of midlife. He has had his teeth capped. He yearns for five minutes under a sunlamp. He is thinking of having his hair dyed.

Unlike his wife, Sam Nash does not accept getting older. And, as if to prove that Karen's earlier observation was correct, he trades in the old for the new and has an affair with his secretary, Jean MacCormack.

It's tough being college students playing middle-aged adults. James Adams and Megwyn Sanders acquit themselves nicely. We truly believe they've been married 23 years (or is it 24?). And we truly feel for them as they struggle with Sam's admission of his affair with Miss MacCormack, played with the proper aplomb by Bria Nicholson.

The second act, "Visitor from Hollywood," casts Rachel Roberts as Muriel Tate, a New Jersey housewife who is visiting her high school sweetheart, Jesse Kiplinger, at the Plaza.

Kiplinger has gone on from their hometown to become a famous Hollywood producer, a tinsel town wunderkind. He lives in Humphrey Bogart's old house, dines with Sinatra, and has come to New York to sign John Huston to direct a film.

Muriel keeps her dainty white gloves on through most of the act, symbolic of her innocent, almost pristine ways. Yet her marriage is on the rocks and she, impressed with Kiplinger's celebrity, is ripe for the picking. As she waits for her third vodka stinger, she takes off her gloves.

Jason Merkler is sufficiently sleazy as a man on the make, though at times it is difficult to believe that he is a Hollywood producer.

But the act belongs to Roberts, who brings a wide-eyed, star-struck quality to her performance and a sense of comedic timing that is well beyond her years. She knows when to be broad in her comedy and when to underplay it.

Act three, "Visitor from Forest Hills," shows a married couple, Roy and Norma Hubley, with a different problem -- not a marriage breaking up, but a marriage that may never happen. Their daughter Mimsey, who is supposed to be married at the hotel in a matter of minutes, has locked herself in the bathroom of the suite.

The act is not subtle in its humor. But it wasn't meant to be. Simon knows how to end the show with broad physicality that becomes pure slapstick at times.

Still, Shannon Smith and Danna Dockery, as Roy and Norma Hubley, bring some human touches to their characters that endear even as they delight. Imagine an upper middle-class Ralph Kramden in a tuxedo battling it out with a frantic Edith Bunker. Not subtle, but funny. Very, very funny.

The set itself, designed by Dennis Seyer, even seems to play a role in the action, as well it should for a production called "Plaza Suite." Divided into two sections -- a living room and a bedroom -- the set helps the audience see some of the conflicts inherent in the relationships.

Sam and Karen Nash often find themselves in different rooms, reminders of their growing distance from one another.

The second act, played almost exclusively in the living room, always has the lure and the seduction of the bedroom in its shadows.

In the third act, the bathroom door becomes the focal point.

The directors have done well in using the play, the actors and the stage to produce a wonderfully fun evening.

"Plaza Suite" will play Friday, Saturday, Nov. 18, 19, 20 and 21 at the Rose Theatre. Performances are at 8 p.m. each night except Nov. 19. The Nov. 19th performance is at 8:30.